And oh my gosh my to-do list is VERY, VERY long. And so I stay away to try and get it all done, because I have self imposed deadlines for things, but sometimes it pays to come here and say ‘mercy’. What I was going to announce is not ready to be announced.

And I am giving myself a break. Taking it easy on myself, and trying very hard to not feel ick about it. Because everything is enough for right now.

And if I push myself too hard, it will not come from a healthy place.

So instead I am here making announcements and then back to my to do list to make it happen (even if the thought of saying I am overwhelmed is scary).  These little plan changes are real life.  Summer holidays happened.  And puppies were born. (and what an experience that was!)

Now to  work my arse off.    Painting.  Making and editing videos.  Creating.  And painting.  And reading and researching.  And planning.  And doing.  Especially the doing.  I have much more to come my friends.  And I am not waiting until it is perfect.  I am doing it with what I have when it will be good enough.

But first…the link to my first live class (someone did ask…I am not spamming).   And a big thank you to everyone who came and put up with noise issues.  You are all appreciated so, so much.

I have tried to embed it, but that is not working, so here instead is the link.

And I have started my first oil painting.

Only the first layer, and it takes a long time to wait for things to dry which is a good lesson in patience for me.  But I am excited.

And now announcements.  Drum roll if you please…

29th February… 2012…

I will be opening an online class on Texture for beginners.  No finished spreads or pieces.  Just a simple, back to basics class on creating actual and implied texture in our work.  A little treasure trove of information for those who have never picked up a brush and before and don’t know where to start.  The class I wish I had had, a few years ago now.

And hopefully some reminders for the more advanced, of forgotten techniques.  So 29th February.  More information will follow…but this class will be FREE.  Free, Free, Free.  And will be found here.

And also on the 29th February I will be launching an online shop to sell my work.

And to repeat, none of this will be happening on the 14th February like I planned.  But the 29th is lucky. Especially the 29th February 2012!  I feel it in my bones.

And there are a myriad of other little bits to be done.  That have made it on to a to-do list.  And they will get done as well.

And I just feel like a new wave of energy is opening and I am sinking into it and riding that wave.  I have crazy inspiration all around me, and good friends who make me laugh.

And life is good.

Thanks for visiting, and for reading all this if you have made it down to here.  I am beyond grateful for all of you. 

I have decided to do a live show.

Doing art live.

Even if it completely cocks up and I look like a talentless idiot.

Scares the bejesus out of me.  And I feel a little ill.

BUT…I am still doing it!  :)

So…details…

The channel is here.

And it will be live on the 29th January at 1pm EST (USA Time)

I believe that is…

29th January 12pm CST

29th January 6pm UK time

30 January 7am New Zealand time.

So yes, I will be bringing coffee!  :)

And there may be the sounds of a family getting up and sorted, but I will go with it.  And cross my fingers it all works.

My intention is to do an intuitive tribal-ish piece with a bit of lino printing as well.  I am concerned my intuition will leave me in a bout of stage fright, but that is the beauty of live tv, and thank goodness I don’t mind laughing at myself.

So yay!

Come and join me.  On my FIRST live show.

The photos are all from a class in the altered books class that can be found here.  A portrait pop up that has nothing to do with this post.  :)

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

C S Lewis

I have been finishing videos for the altered books class, and working on this, and self portraits, and helping assist in the birth of puppies.

And so it is delayed.

And I have been working on something else as well.  That I am super excited about.

But I am not going to announce that today, because I am a big tease.

But in the next few days check back, because I have something to announce and I am excited about it.

Really super excited.

But in this time of summer holidays and puppies, I have not been keeping up very well with facebook, or blogs or anything else, but I will catch up soon.  There had to be some priorities set however, so I could fit everything in.

And my computer is still dead.  Potentially with all my daughters photos on because I do not back up anything.

But I am crossing my fingers they can get that stuff back.

Because the thought that I have lost EVERYTHING on that computer makes me feel ill.

I am currently working on a windows machine.  I miss my mac.  Stupidly miss it, like it is an actual person almost.

I have decided this is a lesson in attachment, and I am hopeful that if I can demonstrate this lesson well enough, the powers that be will approve, and will save all my information…

Don’t forget to check back in a couple of days…:)

For my announcement!  :)

Thomas Merton

A bit late because I was hoping to do this on my computer, but it appears I am going to be computerless for a few weeks at least apparently…

So I am using my phone and a WordPress app to hopefully blog (if you are reading this it worked! ) and show a photo of my page.  And a video will hopefully be forthcoming when the computer fixit people manage to fix my computer.  And I will then faithfully do back ups.

In the mean time, here is the photo taken on my phone of my page…

Crossing my fingers this works…

I will post a video and photos of the spread once I have done it.

The first quote is one of my favourites (and perhaps something I should have remembered during the past month)

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.“

Pablo Picasso

I have been wanting to do my own Oracle cards for a couple of years, and recently I have thought about it more and more.  And while thinking about it, I was thinking about how to store them.  And I was wondering about a box or bag, and then late one night, lying in bed, when I couldn’t sleep, I saw this idea in my head. For an accordion book with pockets.

And I thought this could be my first tutorial for the Arts and Lies Group, so I started thinking about ways it could be done.  And this is my way.

But first, even though I am going to use it for my oracle cards, I want to stress the complete adaptability of this.  You could forget the pockets and have a series of blank cards for a series of paintings, or collages, or an art journal.

I have kept all my children’s congratulations on your birth cards, and all birthday cards they have so far collected, and I thought about doing one of these for each of their years of birth and slipping all cards in.  You could make a smaller one to store ATC’s or postcards.  Options are truly endless.

Also I saw this in my head, and this is only how I did it.  And if there is a better way (and there is sure to be), then please let me know.  But other than the fact it opens up backwards Japanese Style because I assembled it as I did it, and I didn’t register too much in advance, I LOVE how this baby came out.

I know there is a lot of photos, but truly it is basically a strip of material and two cards, one on either side of the material backing onto each other, spread along the length of the material so it folds up accordion style.

I started with plain muslin…because I had it, and I wanted to experiment with dying it, without dye…

I popped it in a freezer bag damp and added acrylic paint…

I rubbed it around in the bag, but the colour was not very strong, despite adding in quite a bit of colour.

It is showing up more vibrant in the photo than in real life.  Even now.  But I popped it into the bag again and used some of my homemade alcohol ink sprays.

I would give it a couple of sprays and scrunch it around and kept doing that, so it came out kind of tie dyed…

I was not entirely happy, but decided this would do well enough.  I can certainly recommend just grabbing some material that you have to hand rather than going down this track! 

I then split the material into strips.  Rather ripped.  I would recommend using scissors.

Because I ripped, and this was very light muslin, I sewed two pieces together, and sewed around the outside, very roughly with my sewing machine.  Trust me when I say if I managed this with my rough sewing, you can.  I was transferred into another class out of sewing classes at school, there was a reason for this.  My sewing machine does not like me.  And yet I still managed this.

I then put this aside and grabbed a pile of cereal boxes I have been storing (AKA hoarding).

I measured out how big I wanted the panels to be and began marking this out on the boxes, and then I began cutting.

With my stack of panels, I decided to cover these with brown paper.  I chose this, so that I could write on the panel, any notes that may come to mind or anything at all in relation to the oracle card that will fit in the pocket.  But you could cover these with anything, or use anything other than cereal boxes.  even just gesso them.

I just wrapped the cards in the brown paper, like a parcel.  I used double sided tape, because I was going to have the cards backing onto each other, with the material in the middle, so each side has a pocket. So no one will see this back.

I decided to make the pockets neutral as well, and used book text that I cut to size.  This way they could remain plain, or I could gesso and paint them.  Dependent on the card.  Though you could use any paper at all (and I almost used some scrapbooking paper), or not even have pockets.  I decided to have my pockets down the bottom, but you could have pockets off to the side, or do anything that catches your fancy.

To stick the pockets on I decided to sew them on.  I did a few with the sewing machine, until I gave it and decided to go with a needle and embroidery thread.  I mostly just did a running stitch, but did also do blanket stitch.  I was thinking while I was doing this, that possible you could have lined the cards up with the material strip in the middle and stitch through all the layers together, which would also fix the cards to the material as well.  But I didn’t do that.  Next I show the variety of stitches I used.  Because I used cereal boxes, I poked all the holes around the outside with an awl before I stitched with a needle and thread.

Once I had a pile of cards with pockets I gathered them all together and decided on the gap I wanted between the cards on the material.  I decided on an aproximately 1cm gap.  BUT this was eyeballed, I didn’t measure at this stage.  At this stage I decided on how I was going to close the accordian book, as I still wasn’t sure.  I decided on the front and back sides (however I was backwards because of the way I laid them out, please note that the cover will be the first panel on the left.)

I took those cards (the first and last one), once I decided they would have no backing card and pocket, and painted the backs of them black, very roughly.  This was only because they both happened to have the actual cereal box showing rather than bare board and the muslin is so thin you could see right through it.

You can see how rough the painting was here:

I would not have done that step had the material not being so thin.

The panel I chose as the cover, I sewed a button quickly onto the muslin.  You could use any fastening method.  Even just a simple tie around the completed book that you untie each time.

I then spread gel medium onto the first card in a reasonably thin layer and pressed it into the material.  Because of how thin the material is, it stuck very easily.  You could stick the material on with any other adhesive.  I used gel medium because that is what I had to hand.  I then began sticking the other middle panels on.  Originally I planed to stick them along one side, allowing 1 centimeter between each panel.  However it was easier to do one whole panel at a time I found.  So I stuck the front panel on to the material, and then I turned it over and stuck the back panel onto the material, with the edges of the panels connecting to each other.

I then moved on to the next panel, and did the same. These photos show the panels sticking together, and the strip of material running through the middle of them.

The last panel I decided to finish with a quick stitch of thread on  to the muslin before I glued the last panel on.

I decided to leave the thread long enough to wrap around the closed book once and then wrap around the button.

You could however make a loop to go over the button.

Or have a smaller thread that just ties around the button…

OR even use a different closing altogether!

Then you fold it up like an accordion…

So that all folded up it looks like this from the top:

I hope you have enjoyed my first tutorial!

I was going to put the link here to Rhomany’s Coptic binding class at MixedMediaWorkshops.com, but it does not look like it is currently offered over there, it is over at Willowing.ning.com, the information for that is here.  The class is Cryptic Coptic, and honestly she makes it so easy to understand, it is fantastic!

So every week I will have a spread dedicated to an art or creativity quote.

That will be here on my blog every week.  And I am thinking there will be a quick video to go with that of me doing the spread as well.

As well as that I will have another journal that I will work in everyday inspired by Judy Wise.

AND another journal with a weekly self portrait, or representative portrait, or maybe a poem, but something every week to represent me.

All explained in my rambling in my VLOG! 

Happy New Year everyone.

The doctor didn’t know what was the cause of his leg problems and sent him for a scan.

While he was at the scan, I was on my way to collect our son from school, and I got this text:

“Have blood clots, going to ed [emergency department], will see you at home”

Really?  See me at home?  BLOOD CLOTS????

Having seen a few medical programmes I imagined blood clots traveling to major organs and so began the complete shift of my current paradigm.

We had a brief text conversation that I would come up to the hospital with the children and he assuring me that all was well and he would see me at home.

I didn’t bother to argue.

We went to the hospital.  Frankly he was dreaming to imagine I would ever do otherwise.

When he first saw me he told me we had to discuss some general disobedience issues.  I cried.

The doctor said Deep Vein Thrombosis and mm’s from been very dangerous.  And I cried.

To be honest I had cried at the initial text as well.  And I have cried a lot since.  I am a crier anyway.

And we are in the middle of daily injections, and blood thinners.  And I am worried sick.

And I wake up countless times a night to make sure he is still breathing.  He did suggest in a smart arse kind of way that I didn’t know if he had a clot to the brain while he was still breathing and I offered to wake him to check cognitive function when I checked he was still breathing.

And he calls me in to listen to his new theme song, which turns out to be “Knocking on heavens door”.

One of the reasons I love this man is his sense of humour and how much he makes me laugh.  But I am not in a laughing mood yet.  He does persist in trying though.  Sometimes it has worked, other times I end up in tears.

But I know he gets it, because we had a discussion and he illustrated clearly he got it.  So I get it.  He is trying to take my mind of it.  But Operation Clot Watch is quite dominant in my thoughts.

I am grateful for doctors and my paints.

It is amazing to me how something like this completely puts all other stresses into perspective.  You remember what is important.

Just in case you lose focus.  Especially at this time of year.

A new calmness has descended on me.

I love Christmas.  I go completely over the top with the homemade baking and crafts and activities.

I love it.

But this year some stress had crept in as well.

Now I am refocused once again on what is important.  Funny how sometimes that needs a big wake up call, though if I could order a lesson a little less life threatening and scary I would appreciate it.

The art belongs to the FREE altered book class that is still on over here (with new content STILL added every week for at least the next four weeks)….

And if you are looking for a new project for the year can I suggest this that looks freaking cool.  Though I have other plans for next year (that I will announce soon), and I won’t be doing it, I do recommend it and can hardly wait to see what people do with their stories and postcards…just a super cool idea, and already some fantastic people have signed up.  I was so, so tempted…(and there is still time before it begins where I may change my mind )

Back to Operation Clot Watch…and of course Christmas, arting and everything else that fills in the cracks.